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Between Two Ages	By : AislingSiobhan Category: A through F > Chronicles of Narnia Views: 4542 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Chronicles of Narnia, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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I need a better banner.
Also, do you actually want me to do day-by-day experiences (although I don’t believe in including useless bits and pieces just for fleshing out a story) or would you prefer necessary time-jumps? Suggestions, not demands.
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Words: 4,109
Chapter 3
Settling In
A week seemed to fly past in Narnia. It seemed like no little time at all when one thought about all the years and years that have gone since Narnia first began, and yet in one week so much was begun. Three of High King Peter’s men lead a handful of Telmarines, along with the new King Caspian, through the woods towards the River Rush and the Fords of Beruna. Once Caspian – or as we’ll call him, Miraz – had made a show of inspecting the land and giving his agreement, they all returned to their respective homes.
Now, once Miraz returned to the two Galleons his people still lived out of, he immediately gave the go ahead for his ‘plan’ to begin. His plan, which you may not remember so I will repeat it, was for one of his trusted crewmates (whose named happened to be Renalda, but was pretending to be Lord Renalda) to lead two small teams of five men each and begin searching for a suitable place to build his real castle. Miraz was not content to accept the gracious offer of land from Peter. Miraz was the sort of person who was only ever satisfied with a possession if he happened to have stolen it from someone else. His pleasure was only increased by the opportunity to kill the previous owner as well as steal the item.
Lord Renalda, as we’ll continue to call him for arguments sake, was actually quite pleased with one area he found. So he sent for King Miraz, and he waited patiently for two days while Miraz thought about whether or not to keep his subject waiting even longer. For Miraz was also one of that type of people. Not at all kind, noble or gracious: all in all, very bad makings for a King.
The land Lord Renalda had decided upon was rather close to Beaversdam; where Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy had first had tea with the Beavers before Edmund ran away and they had to chase him all the way to the White Witch, fifteen years ago.
Beaversdam was a lovely area, and Lord Renalda was obviously a character of good taste for choosing Beaversdam. There was a waterfall close by, and the whoosh-whoosh-ing noises the water made as it soared over the edge put a person in a rather calm mood. A more soothing noise one would be hard pressed to find. The land that would eventually be built upon was actually at the top of the waterfall. The land jutted outward, handing over the edge of the cliff, and once walls and a moat had been created, Miraz should be pleased to have the best-defended castle that ever would be built. Lord Renalda thought the area further in land would be a good place to build the homes for the rest of the people.
After the moat was built, to separate them from the King, Miraz established.
It only took three days for building to commence at Beaversdam. Miraz was very careful to make it appear that the necessary resources that were being ‘loaned’ to them from King Peter were headed towards Beruna. To be fair, a few bricks and mortar headed where Peter wanted them to go. In fact, that was very lucky for Miraz, because Damne (the guard who had answered the door for the 4th messenger) had gone to investigate the building at Beruna. He had reported that something was being built – but it was being built very slowly, with very few men and it seemed to be smaller than anyone would have considered Miraz to approve of.
Of course, Miraz’ real castle was to be enormous and magnificent once fully completed. It would be much quicker to build if he had more servants, but he was too clever to ask Peter for assistance in that respect. For Peter’s men were sure to notice that there were next to no Telmarines at Beruna. It was best to keep at a steady yet slow pace, and ensure that he eventually did get his castle completed. At least until he had those children out of the way.
Then he could do as he pleased, as King of Narnia.
Miraz wasn’t an easily trusting man. There were a handful of people he truly trusted and even then they could exceed their trustworthiness on occasion. Mostly, he trusted in himself, and in his sons. He trusted the elder son, Caspian, because he knew that Caspian would do whatever his father told him as long as the promise of being King still remained past Miraz’ death. He also trusted Caspian not to hurry him along to the afterlife, because Caspian was one of those boys who did not like death as much as a normal boy should. He trusted Calpian, the second son, because the boy wasn’t bright enough to do anything untoward without being told by Caspian (and as already mentioned Caspian would be unlikely to plot against anyone let along his own, untrustworthy father).
It was with those notions in mind that Miraz appointed Calpian to oversee the building of Beruna, while he himself headed down to Beaversdam for three days at a time, every two days. Caspian begged to be allowed to remain behind at the Galleons. He had insisted that someone would need to remain behind to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.
Unknown, however, were his true intentions, and so Miraz allowed the boy to remain behind. Caspian truly only wanted more opportunities to force his presence upon the High King, (without his own suspicious father nearby).
So it was a full week after the return of the Kings and Queens, and Caspian’s first meeting with Peter, and that kiss, that Caspian was free to do as he wished. And he wished for nothing more than to see Peter again. It was growing dark now, the air was beginning to gather a faint chill but Caspian wasn’t deterred. He pulled his scarf tighter around his neck and knotted the loose ends together so they would not catch or wrap around any tree branches. Then he walked silently towards the area of the beach that met the cliff face. One moment he was standing upon sand, then suddenly the sand gave way to rock and Caspian reached up, took a handful of land in each hand and heaved himself up. His foot found purchase on the cliff face beneath him and he pushed up with his feet, reaching for another handful of earth with his hands, climbing higher and higher and never once looking down for fear that he would loose his composure.
He could have walked around the narrow winding path through the forest to the front gates of Cair Paravel but he didn’t want to be let in through the front doors and have to see Peter and share him with all of those others. He wanted Peter to himself for mere moments.
He doubted this way would be guarded, after all no one would be foolish enough to climb so steep a cliff without rope at the least. But Caspian was nothing if not determined. So he kept climbing, until he thought he could no longer move for stiffness and tiredness. Fortunately, he had no further to go. As soon as he thought he might as well just let go and fall, because he was too tired to hold on anymore, there was suddenly a stone pillar just within his grasp. He took hold of it and pulled himself up. The last of his strength was used to heave himself over the side of the balcony. He lay, panting upon the floor, for a moment or two. When he had gotten his breath back he looked over the edge of the balcony and paled as he realized how far he had climbed.
He hadn’t gone high enough however, as Peter slept in the tower, and he was still two floors below tower level. But it was as close as Caspian could get by climbing the cliff face. He was in fact in Lucy’s bedroom; for she was rather fond of balconies and the sunset and large, wide open windows. He took a quick look around, spotted some strange looking glass bottle (which was really a crystal bottle) filled with red-coloured liquid on the nightstand, but he didn’t want to take the time to investigate.
He left the room, looking left and right outside of the door before heading towards a flight of stairs that led upwards. He had seen Peter watching him walk away a week ago, so he knew he must go higher than he was, but once he found himself on the correct level he was rather lost. He had come from the opposite direction than from where Peter had been watching him, but the several flights of stairs had thrown his direction off until he was sure he was quite lost. He stood, half hidden in a corner of the hallway as someone opened a door and stepped out.
Caspian gasped as the blond hair became suddenly recognizable. Peter headed into another room, and Caspian was able to glimpse inside quick enough to establish that it was a latrine. So he went into the room Peter had exited.
There was a large sleigh bed in the centre of the room, with a wardrobe to one side and a chest of drawers beside the bed on the other side. The walls were painted in earthy colours, browns and beiges with a touch of rust-red, but Caspian thought it was divine. With a smirk he lay himself down on the bed, his head propped up by the numerous pillows and his hands folded provocatively above his crotch. The smirk only widened when Peter walked back into the room and faltered upon seeing him.
“Wha-?” Peter asked, quite ineloquently.
“Are you not happy to see me,” he paused for effect, then leered, “Peter?” Caspian licked his lips; one hand moved higher to rub his stomach lightly but it also had to effect of pushing his tunic up, baring the tanned skin slightly.
Peter felt his mouth go dry, but he refused to allow this child to overcome him. He was almost thirty-one-years-old for Aslan’s sake! He should have better control over himself that he seemed to. But, Peter seemed to forget that in body, not mind, he was only fifteen, and all fifteen-year-old boys are rather hormonal. He had nothing to be ashamed of, nor should he feel guilty for desiring Caspian. After all, he was not thirty was he? He was exactly one year younger than Caspian was, in fact.
“What are you doing here?” Peter demanded finally seeming to come to his senses. He stormed into the room; but did not close the door, for that would be improper in England.
“I came to see you.” Caspian said, sounding quite innocent. “Did you not miss me?” Peter merely glared at him. “I thought of you quite often, you know. I certainly missed you.”
Peter rolled his eyes. He began to tap his foot on the floor impatiently and Caspian finally sat up and looked at him warily.
“How did you get here?”
“Are you mad at me?” He sounded so childlike, so different than the seductive young man he had been moments ago that Peter felt immediately guilty.
“No,” the High King said after some silence. “No I’m not mad at you. But how did you get here?”
“I climbed through the window in the room with the balcony.” There was a window in Peter’s room as well, but it was the length of the wall, floor to ceiling, and had no balcony.
Peter looked at it critically, while Caspian seemed to grow slightly nervous. “Well, I suppose it would be rude of me to throw you back out of the window. I’m afraid you’re going to have to use the door on your way home.”
“Oh,” he exclaimed, jumping from the bed. “But I don’t want to go home! I just got here!” His eyes were wide and pleading.
“Someone will be missing you, I’m sure, and I have no wish to be accused of kidnapping you.” Peter ignored him for the moment and continued what he was doing before Caspian even arrived. That was, of course, getting dressed up for the evening banquet. They had one every night during the Golden Age, and Peter didn’t see why that had to stop just because they were no longer adults.
“Father has gone to inspect the building process, along with my brother.” Caspian walked up behind Peter, for Peter was not paying him any attention and was actually looking into his wardrobe trying to find a suitable cloak. “No one will be missing me, I promise.” He was standing behind Peter as he spoke, and his breath seemed to waft across the back of the blond’s neck. Peter was in fact so startled by Caspian’s close proximity that he stumbled forward and nearly fell into his wardrobe. It was only the Telmarine’s arms around his waist that steadied him.
Peter turned slowly, ignoring for the moment that Caspian did not let him go. “Fine, but just for supper. Then I will have someone bring you back to your ships.” Caspian beamed at him, and Peter was momentarily blinding by the brightness of the boy’s smile. It was in that moment that Caspian stole his second kiss.
He drew back quickly, leaving the High King looking dumbstruck. He reached in over Peter’s shoulder and drew out a sea green cloak. “This will do well, I think,” he held it out as he spoke. Peter put it on, silently. It would be the first time he ever wore it, for he did not find the colour at all attractive. It had been a gift from a visiting princess, and it was much too long for him now as he had been older when he had received it.
They headed down the stairs together, still silent, for Peter did not quite know what to say and Caspian was finally beginning to think he might be pressing his luck. They were met at the door to the dining hall by Peter’s siblings; as they always waited for each other outside, so that they may enter together. Susan frowned at the sight of Prince Caspian but she held her tongue. Though Edmund wasn’t quite as subtle or less oblivious as his sister.
“I say, Pete, isn’t that the horrid cloak what’s-her-name got you? By Jove, I don’t think you ever wore that in your life! I thought it would have been on the fire by now!” He slapped his brother lightly on the back as he chuckled. Peter shared with him a small smile and avoided looking at Caspian, who looked quite confused.
“Why are you wearing it now Peter?” Asked Lucy, innocently.
“Do none of you think it does him well?” Caspian asked incredulously. He rather thought it brought out the tiny flecks of green in Peter’s blue eyes (one had to get very close to see the green). “I thought it did, that’s why I chose it.”
Susan gave Peter a very hard look at that, her eyes boreing into his with a fierce determination to get any secrets to spill from her brother’s mouth. “Yes, well,” Peter said suddenly flustered, “shall we go in?”
Susan nodded and called over one of the waiting guards. “Will you lead Caspian inside please?”
The guard took Caspian and pulled the boy through the doors. After all, only the Kings and Queens may enter together. The table was long; the full length of the room and anyone was allowed to sit where they pleased, except Peter who always sat at the head of the table. As fate would have it, there was one free seat at the top of the table and Caspian asked the guard if he might sit in it. The guard, not knowing whether the other King or the Queens wanted it, said:
“It is up to you lad, but if you’re asked to move, be it on your head alone the fault to lie.”
Peter led his siblings into the room, and he nearly groaned as he noticed Caspian beaming from the seat to his left. Damne, the other guard, was sitting to Peter’s right and he was throwing Caspian some unpleasant looks.
He hesitantly sat down. The moment his bottom touched the seat Caspian instantly started on a excited commentary about all the fun things he couldn’t wait to do now that he was allowed to be off exploring (even though he was meant to be keeping an eye on the other Telmarines and spying on Cair Paravel from the coast). Peter listened with one ear, and eavesdropped on his siblings with the other. They had chosen to sit a few seats down from him, all together, and were now talking in hushed tones about Peter’s sea green cloak.
”But he hated it!” Edmund said, arms across his chest as he looked sullenly at Susan.
“I’m not saying he didn’t. At the time. But we were grown ups then, maybe he likes it now?”
“I think,” Lucy started to say but Edmund butted in.
“It’s still horrid, I say. Peter is some brick!”
Susan glared at him, “I think Peter looks rather nice in it.” She was only saying that so she could watch Edmund’s face darken with anger.
Before he could explode Lucy almost shouted, “The cloak is horrid! Peter hates the cloak!” Then realizing almost everyone was watching her in curiosity or amusement she lowered her voice so even Peter was hard pressed to hear her. “I think Peter likes Caspian.”
Edmund looked rather pleased with himself, for that meant Peter didn’t like the cloak and Edmund was right; Susan looked like she had been slapped. Sure her brother had taken male and female lovers as an adult but he was fifteen now. The fifteen-year-old Peter she remembered, from before the Wardrobe, hadn’t even had a girlfriend. But then, she reminded herself, he had already grown up once, so she supposed they’d all grow up quicker the second time around.
Peter had heard them, and he flushed a dark shade of pink. He tried to hide it though by wiping his face with his napkin, and holding his napkin over his mouth and nose as if he thought her were going to sneeze.
The Narnians were not particularly bothered about what gender you loved, as long as you loved. Love was a fêted emotion and weddings and births were always overly celebrated. Aslan had even been known to gift a male-male couple with a child, if their love was strong enough, once or twice. In fact, Lucy knew two male hedgehogs that had given birth weeks before the children accidentally went through Lantern Waste and back to England weeks ago.
Caspian looked overly curiously, having heard some of the conversation as well. “Why did you not tell me you didn’t like the cloak?” His eyebrows furrowed.
“I was a little distracted.” Peter was quite put out by having to admit to being flustered back in his rooms. Caspian though suddenly had a smug look upon his face and Peter desperately wanted to punch him, but he didn’t, though fortunately Caspian said no more on the subject.
By the time the meal was over and the musicians were all too tired to play and the guests were half asleep on their feet Caspian was face down on the table, snoring lightly. Peter didn’t have the heart to wake him so he had his personal guard (Damne) carry Caspian to Peter’s tower.
I say Peter’s tower, because the tower only had three rooms. One was Peter’s bedroom, the other adjoined onto the bedroom and was for the eventual Queen or mistress (or second King if it may be) and the third was a bathroom. Caspian was laid in the spare room, but some time during the night he woke alone and was not impressed. So he snuck into Peter’s room. He found he rather liked the way that Peter rolled towards him as he lay down and pulled him flush against the blond’s naked chest. Caspian smiled, his head tucked under Peter’s chin, and his arms wrapped around Peter’s shoulders.
That was how they woke as well. Caspian was rather pleased that he hadn’t been thrown from the bed and Peter was rather relieved to find that Caspian was dressed and hadn’t attempted to remove Peter’s trousers.
Caspian would have been better to go home the night before for Miraz would still have been at Beaversdam. But he had left late that night, and was only just now arriving at the coast. Miraz looked around and found, with great annoyance, that his heir was missing. Many people informed him that his heir had last been seen heading towards Cair Paravel the castle. Though no one dared tell his or her King that Caspian had tried to climb the cliff (and truly no one had the guts to watch and check to see if he fell).
When Caspian arrived back, an hour later, for Lucy insisted he be fed, he was in a pleasant mood. Breakfast had been full of stories of Aslan and the Kings and Queens and poems by the Dryads and dancing with the Fauns, and it was brilliant fun. But now that he was home, his father put a dent in his good mood. Miraz met him with a fierce glare.
“Where were you?” He was so angry he didn’t even address Caspian by name, or ‘son’ or ‘boy’.
“At the castle, father,” he said with a respectful bow of his head.
“Why?” The word was spat out like poison. Miraz couldn’t fathom any reason why someone would want to spend time with those barbarians!
“I wanted to spy upon them, Sir,” he lied through his teeth and his heart hurt from the lying. He hoped no one would hear and tell Peter what he was saying for he didn’t want Peter to hate him. “I should not trust them, father, so I thought while you were gone if I could make them trust me then I could report back on their doings to you. It was very late when they ate last night, and I drifted off. I apologize but when I woke it was even later and they wouldn’t hear of me coming back so late, alone.”
Miraz hummed lightly, thinking the statement over. In the end, he merely said, “well, at least one of those barbarians have some semblance of curtsey. Imagine, if they had let you off on your own so late in such a strange place! Why, I’d have gone to war with them at once.” Then he turned without even saying ‘goodbye’ and left Caspian alone.
Caspian looked back, up the cliff, and then towards the woods. The trees, for one moment, didn’t look like trees but rather lots and lots of fat, bearded men and thin, willowy young women. Caspian blinked and the trees once more had branches and roots and all the other things that normal trees ought to have. He shook his head, chasing away what he thought were the remains of fanciful dreams (but were really what the spirits of the trees looked like, for if Peter trusted him then they did too, so they were bearing themselves to the Third Caspian). With one more look towards Peter and the wonderful night before, Caspian headed towards his ship, climbed aboard and immersed himself in his studies.
He had intended to sleep, but his tutor was waiting in his room with other ideas in mind. Perhaps, he thought, this was how Peter felt, with me barging in on his plans? Then he realized it couldn’t be the same. There were no similarities between the wonderfulness of him, and the boredom that were lessons!
Though he did wish that he had chosen to sleep in a little later, or maybe eat just a little bit more. If only so he could be with Peter that much longer. He took a look at his tutor, a short happy fellow, and frowned. History (his history) was ever so dull. After all, it only consisted of his father, grandfather and the journey to Narnia, which he remembered well enough as it was.
The History of Narnia on the other hand would be far more exciting to learn. But he’d wait until he saw Peter again before asking for another story.
XXX
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Longer than usual but I couldn’t find a good place to end it. Thanks for reading. For every person that won’t review, Jadis turns a child to stone (but not Peter, cause he’s too cute)!
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Between Two Ages